President Obama Delivers Feminist State of the Union

Obama took childcare and paid leave out of the "women's issue" ghetto and moved them into a separate, more serious category: economic issues.

President Obama's feeling loose. He's only got two years left as commander-in-chief, and he has no more elections to run—a fact he made clear with a cheeky little zinger during last night's State of the Union address, saying, "I know, because I won both of them." Perhaps that's why he felt emboldened to make his speech a truly feminist one.

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He spent a good chunk of time early on in the address talking about things like more affordable childcare, paid parental leave, and paid sick leave. These aren't issues he has really focused on in past SOTU speeches. And it's not just that he drilled down on these issues. He took them out of the "women's issue" ghetto and moved them into a separate, more serious category: economic issues.

"In today's economy, when having both parents in the workforce is an economic necessity for many families, we need affordable, high-quality childcare more than ever. It's not a nice-to-have — it's a must-have. It's time we stop treating childcare as a side issue, or a women's issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us."

Obama also made clear that it's a disgrace that we're the only major economic global player that doesn't provide mandatory paid sick leave or paid family leave to our workforce. As he put it, "that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home," which is a choice no one should have to make.

He went further on feminist issues, making reference to the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Senate Republicans blocked for the second time late last year. Obama rebuked them for blocking further progress on equal pay for women, saying, "Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work. Really. It's 2015. It's time." Damn skippy it is.

Finally, during the last part of his speech, when he was calling on Republicans and Democrats to stop their excessive partisan bickering, he mentioned the importance of women's access to health care. "We still may not agree on a woman's right to choose," Obama said, "but surely we can agree it's a good thing that teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows, and that every woman should have access to the health care she needs."

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In contrast, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who delivered the Republican response to Obama's address, did not touch on any of these issues, save for a vow to repeal Obamacare, and an anti-choice promise to "defend life, because protecting our most vulnerable is an important measure of any society."

Whether or not Obama will be able to make progress on any of these things—more affordable childcare, paid sick days and parental leave, women's access to the health care they need—remains to be seen. He still has an intransigent Congress to work with, where both branches are now controlled by a GOP that seems to have no clear agenda except for blocking whatever the president wants. Still, to have the President put these issues so forcefully in his State of the Union address is exciting, because it shows the rest of the country that they should be priorities.